WNO: Artworks
01 Jul 2011
Welsh National Opera (WNO) has been selected to lead in Wales on a special development project, launched today
Over the next three years, ArtWorks Wales, led by WNO, will embark on an ambitious research and development programme, drawing on the expertise of some of Wales’s leading arts organisations and Higher Education institutions. They are: National Dance Company Wales, Sherman Cymru, Streetwise Opera, Community Music Wales, Community Dance Wales, Head for Arts and University of Glamorgan.
Over the next three years, each of these organisations will create its own research project, working across different art-forms. The objective is to identify and share good practice in the field, working with a mix of artists to create quality participatory projects in local community settings in Wales, Scotland, London and the North East. ArtWorks “Navigator” is the fifth pathfinder. It is not regionally based but instead brings together national umbrella organisations.
WNO will present the first research project in spring 2012, drawing together opera singers, a composer and a writer with community groups in Wrexham. They will help create episodes of a soap opera with a difference – a sung, not spoken story - about Wrexham and its residents, which will be filmed and screened on-line during a residency at the town’s museum. WNO has a track record of producing opera in unusual settings – including supermarket aisles and railway station platforms – following its Street Songs project in the Valleys (check: 2008 – 2010?), also supported by a grant from the Paul Hamlyn Foundation.
“Providing leadership for ArtWorks Wales is something that will hugely enrich our work in communities in Wales,” says Rhian Hutchings from WNO. “We regularly work in partnership with other artists and arts organisations in Wales, but this is an opportunity to investigate and improve on training and professional development across the board. It is something we are really looking forward to exploring in this wide-reaching pathfinder partnership.”
The five pathfinder partnerships will form a community of practice coordinated by Susanne Burns, Project Director for ArtWorks. Regis Cochefert, Head of Arts at PHF, says:
“Participation in the arts has a profound effect on well-being and quality of life, as well as enabling self-expression and a channel for communication for many people from all walks of life. It is essential that we work to support artists to bring the arts to people’s lives.”
For further information, interviews, or photographs, please contact Penny Simpson, Head of Media, WNO, on 029 20 635036; penny.simpson@wno.org.uk
